Humble Beginnings, Lofty Goals

Ten years ago, Marc Johnson was a potter, living in a three-room apartment in Cambridge, MA. "I got a bird to keep me company," he recalls. "I didn't recognize the sadness of that bird. It came to me over many years."

In his street level studio, Marc and his bird became well known. Before he knew it, Marc had thirty cast-off birds in his three-room apartment. He and his wife relocated to their present home in a more rural town about one hour south of Boston for more space. But Marc explains that there seems to be an "if you build it, they will come syndrome," at work, and the couple's living quarters are again filled beyond capacity with homeless birds.

The room across the hall from his bedroom doubles as an office and quarantine ward, a strawberry iMac against one wall and five caged birds against the other. In the cage closest to the window, Sonny, an otherwise beautiful cockatoo, wears an Elizabethan collar meant to keep him
from picking at the ghastly wound on his chest.

Sonny's acute self-abuse tendencies may never be cured.

Sonny's self-mutilation is likely the result of severe neglect and it's not a habit he'll easily break. At roughly 20 years of age, Sonny could face another 50 plus years of anguish. Marc stresses providing the birds with quality of life over length of life, and with a bird like Sonny an outsider wonders about euthanasia. It's not something, however, that Marc wonders about.

"I don't think it's my role to decide," he says with certainty."I like to try everything I could possible think of first."

But trying everything is taking its toll on Marc, who works with the birds nearly every waking hour.

"I do this seven days a week," he sighs. "I never go on vacation, it's hard to get away even for an afternoon. I can't do it much longer."

He may not have to; the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Animal Cruelty (MSPCA) visited Marc's home recently to better understand the scope of the problem and how to solve it.

With the right amount of care and attention, these birds can thrive.

Additionally, Marc works closely with several other groups around the nation that take in unwanted birds. Marc sites The Oasis Sanctuary in Arizona, the Midwest Avian Adoption & Rescue Services, Inc. in Minnesota, and the Lucky Parrot Refuge and Sanctuary in New York City as his particular allies. Marc also dreams of creating a museum-like educational center that would also serve as a permanent home for parrots that aren't suitable for placement in adoptive homes. He spends much of his time drumming up corporate or private sponsorship for the project.

"We're trying to do good," Marc comments. "Every bird will give back what you put into it."

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